Liturgies of the Early Catholic Church

Various liturgies have come down to us from antiquity; and their age, authorship, and genuineness have been matter of keen discussion. In our own country two writers on this subject stand specially prominent: the Rev. William Palmer, M.A., who in his Origines Liturgic gave a dissertation on Primitive Liturgies; and the Rev. J. Mason Neale, who devoted a large portion of his life to liturgies, edited four of them in his Tetralogia Liturgica, five of them in his Liturgies of St. Mark, St. James, St. Clement, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil, and discussed them in a masterly manner in several works, but especially in his General Introduction to a History of the Holy Eastern Church Ancient liturgies are generally divided into four families, -the Liturgy of the Jerusalem Church, adopted throughout the East; the Alexandrian, used in Egypt and the neighboring countries; and the Roman and Gallican Liturgies. To these Neale has added a fifth, the Liturgy of Persia or Edessa.

Neale sums up the results of his study in the following words: "I shall content myself therefore with assuming, (1) that these liturgies, though not composed by the Apostles whose names they bear, were the legitimate development of their unwritten tradition respecting the Christian Sacrifice; the words, probably, in the most important parts, the general tenor in all portions, descending unchanged from the apostolic authors. (2) That the Liturgy of St. James is of earlier date, as to its main fabric, than a.d. 200; that the Clementine Office is at least not later than 260; that the Liturgy of St. Mark is nearly coeval with that of St. James; while those of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom are to be referred respectively to the saints by whom they purport to be composed. In all these cases, several manifest insertions and additions do not alter the truth of the general statement."